


she is your mirror

by possibilityleft



Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: Gen, Sister-Sister Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-06
Updated: 2014-07-06
Packaged: 2018-02-07 18:07:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1908672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/possibilityleft/pseuds/possibilityleft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elsa is still trying to adjust to her new life. <em>Anna had laughed at Elsa when she caught Elsa touching things in the castle - brushing the suits of armor, teasing a finger through the cook's flour.  She hadn't laughed too hard, though.  Elsa tried to explain how novel it was that she could touch things without hurting them any longer, and Anna reddened and scuffed her foot and eventually made an excuse to go away.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	she is your mirror

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MiraMira](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiraMira/gifts).



Elsa had promised Anna that they'd never close the doors to the castle again, but sometimes she regretted that brash statement. As queen she knew it was only right that she used her whole self for the good of the kingdom. But speaking as a person with real thoughts and feelings, she wasn't really able to pay attention to her advisors discussing farming rights at the moment.

Absently she drummed her fingers on the long wooden table in the meeting room, enjoying the hardness and texture of the wood against her skin. Anna had laughed at Elsa when she caught Elsa touching things in the castle - brushing the suits of armor, teasing a finger through the cook's flour. She hadn't laughed too hard, though. Elsa tried to explain how novel it was that she could touch things without hurting them any longer, and Anna reddened and scuffed her foot and eventually made an excuse to go away. Her sister loved her, but she wasn't sure how to act around her quite yet. Elsa wasn't sure how to act with Anna, honestly. She'd intentionally excluded herself from most of her sister's life growing up. They were learning how to be friends again.

"My Queen?" someone said gently. Elsa clutched her hand on the table. They were all looking at her. She fought a blush, and a panicked urge to get away.

"What's the legal precedent?" she asked desperately. It was a surprisingly all-purpose question, at least in manners of governing. One of the nobles, a tall, thin man with a bright red moustache, immediately launched into a thorough run-down of court cases that might be relevant to the issue at hand. Elsa did her best to pay attention this time.

They broke for lunch at noon. Elsa took an apple to her bedroom and sat in the window, watching people below through the distorted glass. She sighed. Truly, she loved being queen. Her parents had instilled in her a great respect for the office, as well as a strong sense of duty. She would give as much of herself as the country needed in order to function well. But her powers had limits -- she certainly couldn't produce anything as real and true as this single apple -- and her strengths weren't appropriate to most situations, anyway. Most of the nobles in her kingdom seemed to consider it something they should politely ignore, like a princess's burp. Others still found her terrifying, despite her best efforts. Only a few embraced her for who she was. (In fact, she'd already started a letter to Rapunzel, the princess of Corona, who'd been very supportive. But she was far away now, so she couldn't be of much help.)

Elsa wanted to be the best ruler for Arendelle, but sometimes she worried she wasn't the right person for the job. Some days, all she wanted to do was to sit in this dim room by herself and breathe. This place had been her salvation and her prison. It was, at least, a very familiar cell.

She hadn't told anyone where she was going but when a sharp rap came at the door she knew who was there.

"Elsa?" her sister said through the wood. "Can I come in?"

"Sure," Elsa said, mustering an awkward smile as the door opened. Anna fell forward into the room, weighted down with several old books, and on top of the stack, a still-hot meat pie. She dumped the books on the floor with a flourish, wiped some dust from her cheek, and picked up the pie. She offered it to Elsa.

"Have you had lunch yet?" she asked. "I'm starving, I grabbed this on the way upstairs."

Anna warmed up the room as if she'd lit the fireplace. It was one of the many things Elsa appreciated and envied about her sister. Anna might not always pick the right sentence in a conversation, but she connected with people immediately and openly. Elsa knew that people found her cold, even now. She wasn't sure how to change that.

"Go ahead," Elsa said, waving her hand, and Anna bit into the pie, using her free hand in an attempt to avoid getting anything messy on her dress. Anna sat down on the other end of the window seat, giving Elsa a little space, which she appreciated. They were quiet, comfortably, for a moment.

"So the books," Anna said, wiping her mouth, looking over at Elsa out of the corner of her eye as if uncertain how her sister was going to react. "I found them in Papa's library. You're not the only family member who had powers like this. When our great-grandma was queen, she never had to buy ice in the summer. Most of them weren't as powerful as you were, but there's stuff here you might find helpful. I think that's how Papa knew about the trolls."

Elsa clutched her fingers in her lap. She was grateful for Anna, always, but she couldn't help but think that the books couldn't have been hidden too well or Anna wouldn't have found them so easily. And if she had done so, why hadn't their parents? Why hadn't they told her about her history? Why had they tried to cover over a rising problem with a catchphrase?

Elsa still loved them, but she was beginning to think that she would never understand her childhood. She'd be playing catch-up for a long time.

Anna took her silence as disapproval and began to babble. "I mean, I'm sure you've seen them already! Or you have way more important stuff to do, being queen is a super big job!"

Elsa laughed. She reached out and brushed her sister's knee.

"Thank you, Anna," she said. "I haven't been in the library since my coronation. Too busy. You just saved me a lot of time."

Anna smiled. If nothing else, Elsa thought, this was something she could make up for.  
"I have to go back," Elsa said finally. "See you at dinner?"

"Definitely," Anna said.

Somehow, Elsa's afternoon felt much less difficult to face.


End file.
